Rayudu w'Rest's initiative

Mumbai, February 09 2013 by Siddharth Prabhakar

The 4th day of the Irani Trophy game between Mumbai and Rest Of India moved along at a snail's pace, in Mumbai at the Wankhede stadium. After conceding a 127 run lead, the Ranji champions were subjected to a dull day in the field, where neither the batsmen, nor bowlers failed to come up with any inspiring bits of brilliance. Ambati Rayudu scored his 14th first class hundred, while Manoj Tiwary once again failed to convert a half-century into a hundred. At the end of the day, ROI were 296/4, with an overall lead of 413 with Rayudu and Suresh Raina batting on 118 and 40 respectively.

ROI started the day at 27/1 with Murali Vijay and nightwatchman Sreesanth at the crease. Dhawal Kulkarni and Javed Khan, opening the bowling on a fresh day, tried a bit too hard and erred in line. The Kerela speedster, to his credit, presented a solid defence and was able to survive more than an hour, in the process even flicking a few loose balls to the fence. Vijay settled into the pitch nicely, but was uncharacteristically slow after a quick start. It seemed like the only way that the partnership could be broken was a run-out and that too came thanks to the batsman. Vijay tapped one to cover and called for a quick single and as Sreesanth ambled his way across to the other end, a direct hit from Rohit Sharma found him well short. A few overs later Vijay followed him to the crease, driving lazily to Sharma again at short extra cover.

That brought Manoj Tiwary and Ambati Rayudu to the crease. The former seemed to be under a bit of pressure, considering that he was desperate to do really well after getting out to a rashly judged shot in the first innings. Mumbai sensed that and kept things really tight and in a spell of bowling before lunch, skipper Abhishek Nayar literally made Tiwary dance to his tunes, swinging the ball both ways. Tiwary survived till the break and was had scored just 11 runs off 54 balls.

Returning after Lunch, the Bengal middle order batsman's woes seemed to diminish as the ball found the middle of the bat. Mumbai's strange tactic of not persisting with Nayar eased his nerves and he got going with a clip to the fence off Javed Khan. Rayudu was selective in his shot-making and used his feet to the spinners, lofting them over the sightscreen for sixes. The duo put on 140 runs for the 4th wicket and brought up their fifties before Tiwary, on 69, gloved a delivery from Dabholkar while trying to play a sweep and was caught by Jaffer behind the keeper. Like in the first innings, he made his way back slowly, unhappy with the decision, with the replays showing that it might have gone off the elbow.

Towards the end of day's play, Rayudu, joined by Raina, milked the Mumbai bowlers for singles. The intent just wasn't there from the local boys and it looked like they had accepted defeat. Left arm spinner Ankeet Chavan was singled out for special treatment, with Rayudu and Raina lofting him for big sixes over his head. At the fag end of the day, the Baroda skipper cut Thakur through the cover point region to bring up his first Irani Cup hundred, and in the process ensuring that he remained in the selectors' eye.

It remains to be seen if ROI will declare early on Day 5 and if that does happen, it will set up an engrossing final day. With Sachin Tendulkar not taking the field on Day 4, the advantage will be with the ROI bowlers who could then try to go for an outright win.